Quick and inexpensive lighting techniques for solid charcoal cooking fuels have been sought for some time. Devices have been developed with electrical heating elements and/or fans to improve heating and oxygen flow to increase the rate of ignition. The use of liquid hydrocarbon accelerants (e.g., charcoal lighter fluid) continues to be popular as well.
Certain canister-type starters are also known in the art such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,469,835 and 4,227,510. Devices such as these provide an upper and lower chamber separated by a partition supplied with through holes or openings to allow passage of gas. Combustible material such as crumpled newspaper is placed in the lower chamber and the charcoal to be ignited is placed in the upper chamber. After ignition of the material in the lower chamber, combustion begins at the lowest level of the charcoal in the upper chamber and progresses up until all the charcoal is in some stage of combustion. The contents are then discharged into the area of a barbecue grill designed to hold the charcoal and cooking is then commenced.
There are problems and shortcomings with all of the solutions on the market. Devices with auxiliary heating and forced airflow are relatively expensive and prone to failure due to the complicated nature of the devices (e.g., use of moving parts and/or electrical power). Liquid hydrocarbon accelerants are also an added cost and can alter the taste of the prepared food. Known canister-type charcoal starters normally take an unacceptably long time to attain combustion of an adequate number of charcoal briquettes (indeed, if this can even be achieved at all with known prior art devices).
What is needed is a system and method for addressing the above, and related, issues.